Tag Archives: reflective thinking

In this stage, I focus on the final formation of jewellery. I’m particularly inspired by the some artists who focus on the organic material and life theme. As Mcqueen said ’People find my things sometimes aggressive. But I don’t see it as aggressive. I see it as romantic, dealing with a dark side of personality,’ he once observed, ‘kind of deep and kind of melancholic about my collections.’

I combined eroded antler and metal, antler and metal, they are two kind of different material, eroded antler is fragile, however metal is hard. I hope my works reflect paradoxical relationships such as life and death, lightness and darkness, melancholy and beauty through using these two materials.

I collect the antler, and then design them in the form of jewelry. in process, metamorphosis of the bones symbolize decomposition of natural life cycles. At last, a series of new jewellery forms composed from the bones will be shown and it can manifest the dead transforms into something new.

To wear my jewelry pieces on the body plays an important role. It is very important for me that my jewelry will be worn, expressed on the body and reflect within the processing of transformation of life, which makes it special.

2.Evaluation

I think the final work is a meditation on the dynamics of power, in particular the dialectical relationship between fragile and sustainability of life. My reflections on primitivism are frequently represented in paradoxical combinations, contrasting modern and primitive, civilized and uncivilized.

In this stage, as the development of projects, my works are drilling and making eroded antler through using different parts of the antler and skull of deer to create , in order to explore the concept of repeated cycles of life and death.

I was inspired by Monika and Tokushige Hideki, they use specific symbol to present life cycling,such as wheel and flowers. Compared with my project, I prefer to choose eroded hole to tell people the process of transformation of life. Because eroded processing means the end of life and the start of new life-form. I also want to pursue the new life-form after life die. However, they inspired me to break the original form of skeleton.

Evaluaton

Through a series of experiments about eroded form, I think the eroded feeling is a very clear form to express the transformation and fragility of life. I interpret my concept in a poetic way, I really feel dying figures are meditative or weak, I can see the weak life and a new life coming.

The process of transforming the deceased rodents into intricate floral artworks is not for the weak-stomached. Hideki must freeze his mice before picking out their bones and using the remains as fragile building blocks for his flowers, collectively known as “Honebana.” He quickly photographs his constructed masterpieces and then smashes the sculptures, ending the delicate art ritual by burying the bones in the ground.

Analysis

While I see Hideki’s project might seem morose at first. I think his flowers are meant to reflect on the momentary nature of beauty; drawing attention to the fact that most creatures, both exquisite and repulsive, will reach their demise. In an email to The Huffington Post, the artist simply stated, “I hope that my artwork, Honebana, is spread all over the world.”

Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter follows the cycle of the four seasons, evoking and renewing the spirit and tradition of Chinese literati ink painting. Delicately balancing the violent, instant impact of the gunpowder explosion and the frailty of the porcelain, Cai Guo-Qiang manages to capture the vivid tones of the four seasons with unusual nuance and sensitivity.

Analysis

Cai said:”The language of gunpowder is becoming richer and richer: it can splash like ink, or act like oil paint in some paintings, yet it becomes photographic and print-like in others. However, in addition to these roles it plays, it also has its own role. It is an energy that can destroy all these roles as well as construct others”.

For me, I can see there is an element of violence in Cai’s work; the act of creation through destruction is similar to the birth of the universe. The violent process adds more value and meaning because it results in quiet and elegant works. From his works, I realized that no break no birth, so I think about my project “rebirth” again, rebirth means a new life-form is born through destruction, in this sense, I can break or collect some old objects to make my works.

Conceptual artist Kate McDowell expresses her interpretation of the clash between the natural world and the modern-day environmental impact of industrialized society. The resulting works can be equal parts amusing and disturbing as the anatomical forms of humans and animals become inexplicably intertwined in her delicate porcelain forms. Via her artist statment:

“I see each piece as a captures and preserved specimen, a painstaking record of endangered natural forms and a commentary on our own culpability.”- Kate MacDowell.

Analysis

“Anatomy and nature are central components of her pieces and the way she manages to combine the two so perfectly, harmoniously even, is just beautiful. They are at once both delicate and yet grotesque, provoking a conflicting emotional response in the viewer, unsure as to whether they should feel awestruck by their beauty or repulsed by the underlying macabre theme”.— Stephanie Brown

About kate’s medium – minimalist, translucent white porcelain – renders her viscerally disturbing subject matter graceful, even elegant. Some of her pieces, like Sparrow, play off the porcelain’s resemblance to delicate bleached bone.

In others, the permanence of the porcelain generates tension with the ephemeral forms it depicts – like insects, leaves, and flowers.

Kate purposely like to use the conflict caused by the pairing of beauty with the macabre or grotesque in work to evoke an emotional response so that viewers will spend more time with the piece. By making the pieces out of delicate white porcelain, with a classical/baroque style more often seen in marble sculpture it does invite people closer to spend more time studying the forms and textures without being instinctively turned off by lots of slippery red meat. Often they miss the darker messages until this closer inspection. I like that there is sometimes a bit of a time lag in responses to her work, then lot’s of “ewws” and some smiles and laughs.

Evaluation

I think kate chosen delicate white porcelain as a medium to mitigates (or dilutes) the instinctive distaste many people have for cadavers/exposed viscera. For me, the relevant aspect was how she used minimalist, translucent white porcelain in works. In my works, I try to adopt bone china to build new life-form, her classical/baroque style is brilliant to me, her works are full of delicate details and put warm-toned light in her porcelain works, at the time, I can see the beautiful inner structure. Alternatively, this could e related to my works. About my works, I also want to put light inside, so some methods I can learn from her works.

“Mirrored Room” offers a little something for everyone. It is a reflection on death and the afterlife. It is a planetarium contained in a room the size of a large walk-in closet. Cosmic and intimate at the same time, it merges inner and outer space, science and mysticism, the personal and the impersonal.

It also makes for the ultimate selfie. One click and there you are, floating in the universe, or rather, multiple yous, replicated over and over.

“Yayoi Kusama’s work has transcended two of the most important art movements of the second half of the twentieth century: pop art and minimalism. Her extraordinary and highly influential career spans paintings, performances, room-size presentations, outdoor sculptural installations, literary works, films, fashion, design, and interventions within existing architectural structures, which allude at once to microscopic and macroscopic universes.”—David Zwirner

I’m a longtime fan of Kusama’s polka-dotted point of view. I am obsessed with her outstanding talent. My feelings are uncontrolled through her installation. I’m trying to deliver feeling about afterlife through my works. In my opinion, Yayoi Kusama do this best, She delivers the joy of the art and love and peace to people who are suffering and don’t have the opportunity to enjoy the joy of the art.

is best known for immersive large-scale light-based installations inspired largely by his interest in shared human experience. This tendency has been combined with a liking for components and an inventive urge for reuse, coupled with career training in manufacture of light. As a result Munro produces both monumental temporary experiential artworks as well as intimate story-pieces.

Analysis

Munro said: “one beautiful quality of light is that it captures the ephemeral. This illusive, seemingly no physical quality has a spiritual essence about it and makes it ideal as medium to use to express abstract concepts such as emotion and connection”.

In my project, the meaning of rebirth tend to imply that cycle life are made of spirit and body, including abstract and specific content. I’m confused about how to express abstract content before. Inspired by Bruce Munro and other documents, I think light is a ideal medium to show concept of rebirth and life.

In addition, having read the experience of Bruce Munro, I now feel the passion and observation of life are important source of inspiration. For me, the most meaningful aspect is recording modes Bruce Munro insists all the time. He records ideas and images in sketchbooks has been his practice for over 30 years. Furthermore, I have learned that responses to stimuli such as music, literature, science, and the world around me for reference, reflection, and subject matter. Therefore, I can know Munro produces both monumental temporary experiential artworks as well as intimate story-pieces.

Tessa’s tiny sculptures revive a belief in fairies: not the general sweet Tinkerbell image but a entomological species transforming fable into macabre lore. Consisted of bits of natural material, such as branch, roots, and carcasses of insects, each of Tessa’s figures is nearly 1 cm tall, their complex detail visible only through a zoom.

“I immediately accosted the artist, Tessa Farmer – looking very smart, and not a bit like she might be carrying an empty Tic-Tac box in her pocket in case she came across any dead insects ¬– in a bid to find out more. Despite my perhaps overenthusiastic demeanour (there were a lot of book launches going on with a lot of free wine), she kindly agreed to let me interrogate her about her amazing artwork”.— laurel Sills

i think she has a professional attitude to artworks, her present pursuits in the fairy world are approached from this very scientific platform. Her creatures are meant to transcend the myth of fantasia by presenting scientific “evidence” of a more sinister and dark realm of fantasy.

Maskull Lasserre is a canadian sculptor, he re-carve some old wood sculptures which are used or discarded. On one side, he keeps a part of original form, on the other side, while revealing an internal bone and muscle structure.

In his imagined skeletons, skeleton as the remnants of life are imposed on an object. A dead body is presented as a new life created by Maskull.

“Lasserre’s drawings and sculptures explore the unexpected potential of the everyday through allegories of value, expectation, and utility. Elements of nostalgia, accident, humor, and the macabre are incorporated into works that induce strangeness in the familiar, and provoke uncertainty in the expected”.—Leslie Tane

I think there is an intrinsic honesty and humility to the carving process. There is no magic, no hidden technology or trick, just the simple subtraction of what was already there. This humble quality makes the amazing alchemy that carving can achieve so much more interesting.

Iori Tomita studied an ichthyology, and is obsessed with various marine organisms. This young Japanese artist first encountered transparent specimens when he took part in a university lecture titled “How to preserve and study tiny bones and muscles of Marine animals”. From then on, he was interested in this kind of research and started to create his own skeletal animals. This plan is called “New World of Transparent Specimen “. Tomita put specimens in formaldehyde, and then colored the cartilage tissue blue. After this, he applied a series of chemical liquids to each specimen, which broke down the muscle proteins, making them transparent and revealing the structure of skeleton. Finally, he injects red dyes to color the skeleton of the fish, and then preserves specimens in a Gansu tank.

Analysis

“People may look at my specimens as an academic material, a piece of art, or even an entrance to philosophy. There is no limitation to how you interpret their meaning. I hope you will find my work as a ‘lens’ to project a new image, a new world that you’ve never seen before.”

From Tomita specimens, I think it’s fair to say the seahorse doesn’t look too shabby after losing all it’s skin and being given a new paint job. The process of actually getting a result like this can take up to a year, as the creatures need to be broken down slowly by a chemical reaction. Small molecules called enzymes break down the soft tissues but leave the bones intact, giving Tomita a ‘Transparent Specimen’. He then dyes the cartilage blue and the bones purple to presumably distract you from the fact that what you’re admiring is a dead fish.